A Miami man has been taken into custody and charged with the January murder of a 61-year-old, police said. Nathaniel Martin, 44, has been arrested over a deadly confrontation that claimed the life of Wilfredo Artiles outside a Miami nightclub. According to WSVN, Martin appeared in court Saturday afternoon where he was denied bond on a murder charge.
Details surrounding the case indicate that Martin is accused of an armed robbery-gone-fatal when Artiles was exiting Studio 60 nightclub on Northwest 36th Street. Authorities allege Martin robbed and subsequently shot Artiles, later making off with the victim's iPhone. This ambush occurred back in January, and now, months later, police seem to have pieced together the case. Investigators were able to track down the suspect, purportedly after discovering his fingerprint on the victim's car, as reported by CBS News Miami.
On the fateful night of January 25, Miami Police responded to a ShotSpotter alert at Studio 60, where they found Artiles inside his car with multiple gunshot wounds. Despite being rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital, Artiles succumbed to his injuries. Surveillance video showed Martin lurking near the nightclub before the murder, dressed in dark clothing. Video footage also captured the chilling moment Artiles was shot after parking his vehicle outside the club.
Further investigating led the police to canvas the area searching for more surveillance that could track Martin's escape route. It was clear they managed to painstakingly reconstruct his movements post-shooting, detailed in the footage of him hiding between two vehicles to light up, believed by police to be a cigarette. This narrative tightly wound together by evidence allowed Miami Police to arrest Martin on February 25 on unrelated charges before questioning him over the murder at Miami Gardens Police Department, as illuminated by CBS News Miami. Martin owned up to being the person in most of the surveillance video but denied he was the shooter when confronted with the clip of the act—despite other video timestamps suggesting otherwise.
As detectives delved deeper into the case, they received a tip regarding Martin's Facebook page which was crucial in affirming his identity. With a warrant in hand, authorities obtained Martin's IP address which further connected him to the crime scene. Now, with the evidence stacked, Martin finds himself behind bars at Metro West Detention Center, awaiting the due course of justice.
